Theirs Not To Reason Why: A Soldier's Duty (37 page)

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Authors: Jean Johnson

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zero
, the entire semi-cylindrical room swiveled up and around, then jerked to a halt. That left Ia lying sideways, locked in place. Teams Gamma and Delta entered, taking up four more slots in the hexagonal chamber, then the same voice gave its warning and rotated the boarding pod. Now she dangled more or less facedown, if at a slight angle. The last pair then entered, followed by D’kora. Like Delta, team Epsilon and the lieutenant had to maneuver past the bulk of team Gamma in their full-mechsuits, which overflowed their own alcoves by several bulky, silvered centimeters.
The inner airlock sealed shut, leaving them in soft glow of the guide-lights rimming each alcove. Ia rested while she could. Her p-suit was constrictive, the air in her helmet smelled dull, and she had nothing but the whine of charging laser rifles for company, since no one was talking.
Hurry up and wait . . . hurry up and wait.
D’kora spoke up, broadcasting to her platoon. The different links showed up as blinking lights on the edge of Ia’s HUD, each hue corresponding to a broadcast channel so that a listener—or a speaker—knew which group of people he or she was conversing with at any point in time.
“A Squad will board with me at midship, looking for the bridge. B and C Squads, you will stack your pods and take the aft airlock. D and E, you will stack and take the bow. B, your priority is engineering. E squad, disable any hyperrelay systems they may have, then sweep for the comm system jammers. Such things are usually found at the front of a ship, but don’t count on it. C and D, look for gunnery pods, weapons lockers, and pirates, but be mindful of your fellow Squads, and be ready for backup.”
The voice of their shuttle pilot was next.
“This is Yeoman Lutzoni to the 2nd Platoon. The
Liu Ji
has found and neutralized the enemy’s broadside external gun pods. Ops reports minimal damage to the hostile vessel. All systems are ready; all pods are secured. We are green for go. Departing in thirty seconds.”
Ia closed her eyes, skimming the timeplains for her immediate future paths. The shuttle lurched around her, swaying her sideways inside her armor. Then the pull of downward gravity ceased with a stomach-twisting, sideways-squishing flip, and only acceleration held her that way. Two more minutes passed; the second minute involved maneuvers that altered her sense of up from down, based on which way the shuttle swerved.
“Launching pods two and three in five . . . four . . .”
The shuttle jerked on either side, shoved by the launching of the pods containing C and D Squads.
“One of you gets to volunteer for point.” D’kora stated in her question-avoiding way. “Make up your minds, fast.”
“Launching pod one in five . . . four . . .”
“I lead from the front.” The words escaped Ia without conscious thought.
The pod lurched headfirst away from its shuttle. Acceleration shoved Ia onto her feet, then swung her sense of down shoulders-up as the craft braked abruptly. They touched with a shivering
thump
, and the automatic grapples
chunked
into the side of the enemy craft. Despite knowing—or perhaps because—what was about to come, Ia felt her heart leap into her throat.
Oh, God. Help me.
CHAPTER 12
 
I’ve been asked many times about that song—the very first one. A lot of people have wanted to know about it over the years. A lot. So. Was any of it actually true?
Every damn word.
~Ia
 
 
She levered herself off of the restraint struts with her elbows, then kicked her heels free. Before she could float across the smallish chamber, Ia twisted and grabbed the airlock wheel near her head. Curling up her legs, she touched the keypad that unlocked the wheel and cranked it open electronically. The wheel could be unlocked and turned manually, in case of a power failure, but didn’t need to be, this time.
Beyond the door lay the second airlock, opposite the one she and her squad mates had entered. She could now hear through her helmet the faint
thrum
of the sealers welding the two vessels together with a special type of plexgel. The lights around the outer airlock door glowed amber, indicating a tenuous contact at best. She didn’t have to enter the airlock; she was now close enough to feel the tug of artificial gravity from the ship. It was weak even at this close range, since she was sideways to the weaves, but it did pull her toward the outer door.
Blinking and focusing to activate the module attached to her shoulder, Ia waited impatiently for the results. As soon as they scrolled up her HUD projection, flashing red in chunks too large to ignore, she activated her comm link on the platoon-wide channel.
“2nd Platoon, all boarding parties—all stop, all stop! I repeat, 2nd Platoon all boarding parties, all stop, all stop!”
“—Corporal Ia, you had better explain yourself!”
D’kora snapped.
“This is Corporal Ia, A Squad, I am detecting explosive charges placed around the midship enemy airlock. Estimated volume . . . eighty-five cubic decimeters of cubane. I repeat, the doors are armed with cubane. That’s enough to rip the
back
doors off the boarding pods, and cream anyone inside. Presume all airlocks are rigged. Standby.”
Her head-up display warned her of D’kora’s approach.
“I want confirmation, Corporal.”
The catch-release for the sensors plugged into her shoulder required fingers to remove it, not bulky servo-digits. Ia brought her arm up to her shoulder. A blink-code and a twist of her wrist opened up the panel hiding her hand. Air hissed out of her torso, but not her helmet. The foam lining her p-suit expanded, pressing against her constricted flesh. It still stung a little, like having every little hair on her body from the neck down tugged upon by tiny imps, but once the suit’s inner layer expanded against her hide, it was bearable. The cold of the pod’s airlock was the worse discomfort, by comparison.
Pinching the connectors with grey-gloved fingers, Ia disengaged the device, then twisted a little bit further. D’kora wedged her own half-mechsuited body closer, giving her just enough reach to push the attachment into place.
“Scan it for yourself, sir.”
“This is Lt. D’kora, confirmed. Midships airlock is rigged to explode. Assume all airlocks are so rigged until confirmed otherwise. Unless we can figure out the right code to open the airlock, we’ll have to back up and cut our way through the hull.”
Ia tucked her hand back into the arm of her suit and sealed it again. It didn’t take much air to re-pressurize the interior of her suit, nor much time to warm her gloved fingers.
“This is Sergeant Pleistoch. We already looked at opening the door with the controls, but they were warded with a force field, sir.”
“A force field on top of a booby-trap makes no sense, Sergeant,”
D’kora returned.
“I know, sir.”
Ia switched to a private channel, contacting D’kora.
“Lieutenant, it doesn’t make sense for common pirates to rig the controls with a force field. The field would make it harder for us to depress the buttons, and harder to set off the explosives. Not impossible, since the fields are compressible to an extent, but harder all the same.”
“You have an idea.”
It wasn’t a question.
“I say these aren’t common pirates, sir,”
Ia stated.
“The force field ensures that anyone but a Salik would have to press hard to activate the buttons . . . but all a Salik has to do is make enough contact to suction the buttons, and lift them for activation. Not depress them. The force field would simply keep them from setting it off. Either these pirates are using old Salik tech and the tools to simulate their capabilities, or . . .”
“Estes!”
D’kora barked.
“Break out the sucker hand!”
She switched back to broadcasting.
“This is Lt. D’kora to 2nd platoon. A Squad has the lowest casualty risk. We’re going to try something. Stand by.”
“Good luck, Lieutenant.” “God bless.” “Bennie said buy no stars, so take no careless risks, sir,”
someone else said, standing out among the brief babble of well-wishes.
Silence followed, broken only by the
clakk
of metal on metal from Corporal Estes hauling herself partway through the inner airlock opening. She passed up the requested apparatus. D’kora took it, and found Ia holding out her suit hand. The older woman paused, then passed it to her. If she had wanted to do it herself, she would have had to maneuver awkwardly, juggling the bulk of their suits as they traded places.
Ia pushed up the cover on the control panel, meant to protect the buttons against space debris. The black field-projection ring surrounding the niche was subtle, but her HUD sensors picked it up, registering the energy field as a pale blue mask with a brighter blue outline. Unfolding the sucker hand, she checked the position of the mechanical tentacle, then laid it down over the opening. Pressing carefully, she suctioned the cups on the underside to the grid of buttons. There were only three buttons to worry about, but that was still a large risk of getting it wrong. Except she couldn’t; she could only pretend to be worried about the outcome.
“Standard Salik pattern, sir?”
Ia offered.
“I don’t know the standard pattern,”
D’kora countered.
“I studied a lot of old military and history files. The Salik ‘hand’ would wrap from outside to inside, lift the middle button, then the inner one, using a light touch if it wasn’t an emergency. The closer to the macrojuncture, the stronger the suckers would be; they’d rig the outermost button for self-defense, and then automated guns would pop out and fry whatever they were programmed to identify as an enemy target.”
“I’ll take your word for it, Corporal. And your advice.”
Tapping the controls, Ia lifted the middle button, then the one closest to the doorframe.
The ship’s airlock cracked open. No explosions. Both women sighed audibly over their external speakers.
“Thank you, Ia.”
The heartfelt mutter came from Estes. A few more drifted through the pod from the other members of A Squad.
D’kora switched back to broadcast.
“2nd Platoon, break out the sucker hands, middle, then inner buttons. Soft and easy, but be quick and lively about it. They’ll know we’re getting through by now. Salik tech and Salik treachery may indicate an actual Salik presence on board. If so, I want proof.”
“I’ll bring you their stomachs, sir,”
Ia quipped.
A servo-hand on her other shoulder stopped her, as did the cold broadcast words accompanying it.
“That was uncalled for. Corporal.”
Oh.
Shakk.
I didn’t just . . . ? Yes, I did.
Wincing, Ia cleared her throat.
“I apologize, sir. My sense of humor is a bit skewed, at best.”
“I will settle for a visual confirmation. An
intact
visual confirmation.”
Nodding, Ia pulled herself into the empty airlock. Greenish white light met her eyes, oddly hued for Humans, who were used to either a more golden or a more bluish hue, but comfortable for amphibians. Gravity righted her in relation to the ship, weak compared to Human Standard, but definite in its sense of
down
. The inner controls didn’t have a force field on them, and no prescience of danger lurked in the timestreams. Ia readied her HK-114 in her right hand and used the sucker hand on the same middle and inner buttons with her left, closest to the doorframe.
Nothing happened as it cycled open, but she knew they were there, lurking behind cross-corridor cover, just waiting for the first Marine to show his or her armored face. Folding up the hand, she fastened it into her now empty shoulder socket. Breathing deeply, twice, thrice, she reached for her own timestream, psyching herself up literally and figuratively for what was about to happen. Fingers curling inside her flexor gloves, she bent her knees, balancing on the sensors under the soles of her feet, and nodded, switching back to her comm link, this time dropping down to her squad’s comm channel.
“Let’s do this.”
Her mechsuit slammed into the far wall of the corridor, launched hard and fast through the airlock door. Two searing shots of bright orange missed her. Two of deep red light scored, one on the armored figure to the left, and as she whirled around, on the other armored figure to her right. Most of that shot seared a charred line in the paint of the bulkhead rather than the armored body ducking back for cover, but she knew she’d tagged the bastard.
Neither of her shots was lethal, but her abrupt entrance and accurate attack had rattled both would-be foes. Estes peered around the corner, then darted into the corridor, followed by the tall bulk of Double-E and Harkins in their own half-mechsuits.
“Humidity eighty-five percent,”
Harkins announced, his own left shoulder socket bearing a set of atmospheric sensors.
“Gravity .73gs. Temperature averaging 28C. Amphibious country, sir, either Salik or Choya.”

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